We teach our middle-grade students to begin their essays with a hook, a sentence designed to get their reader’s interest. But just what kinds of sentences qualify as hooks? Questions, for sure; in fact, a question seems to be the go-to essay opener for this age range! Beyond questions, however, many kids in upper elementary […]
Choosing among the three types of sentences and using them fluently in their writing is a goal that middle-grade students will be tackling from time to time throughout their upper elementary and middle school careers. It’s one of those skills that kids tend to think they already know, but really need to practice. Like it […]
When you have to sit down and grade a stack of papers, are you reminded once again that students’ writing can be boring! Do you see lots of papers in which the sentences relentlessly begin with the subject and then the verb? Middle school students seem to be programmed to write in one of two […]
And by the way, how many tenses can you name off the top of your head? I had to look them up to refresh my own memory for writing this article, and if you’d like a refresher as well, there is a free chart that you can download below. It’s no wonder that teaching parts […]
Here are two useful classroom charts about the parts of speech. One includes basic information about each part of speech, and the other one has sample sentences. Post them side by side on your classroom wall as a handy reference, or give copies to each student for their language arts notebook. Today, parts of speech […]
Many years ago, English class was all about grammar and parts of speech. Lessons in student’s grammar books meticulously went through each and every grammar rule, and students learned each part of speech in detail. Today, of course, things have changed. Language arts teachers cover a huge variety of topics throughout each school year as […]
Connotations – it’s a tricky subject! But luckily middle schoolers and upper elementary kids are good at understanding connotations in their own gossipy way! Now they just need to apply that vocabulary skill to academic activities rather than just decoding the word nuances in a typical “he said . . . she said . […]
So, you’re planning a new non-fiction unit for your language arts class. For the content, you’ve chosen the topic of freedom of the press. It’s bound to be an interesting one since it’s not only a topic where there is common ground but also one with lots of room for discussion. There is common ground […]
Writing skills is such a big topic, there are so many ways to approach it, and unlike some other language arts topics, it can be taught in a variety of sequences. Probably that’s why teachers spend a lot of time organizing and reorganizing their writing lesson plans. Over the past several years, I’ve written a […]
The summer slide, of course, is that step backwards in their literacy skills that kids take during the summer while they are enjoying a break from school and having fun in the sun, but there are a number of ways to combat this phenomenon. Some kids enjoy reading during the summer and keep […]
Dangling and misplaced modifiers are tricky proofreading situations for students to deal with, but luckily, they can be fun to teach as a specific skill so that your kids will be ready to tackle the challenge! Since sentences with these sneaky grammar errors can be pretty funny (by accident, of course!) kids will enjoy searching […]
Some specific language arts skills just need to be taught individually! While it’s true that lots of language skills can be taught by incorporating them into larger lessons such as a novel study or a writing assignment some very specific skills just need to be taught in a separate lesson. Skills such as the following […]
When it’s time to review a topic that’s necessary but not the most interesting, it’s time to pull out your teacher’s bag of tricks – those classroom activities that are fun to do no matter what the content. Games, cut and paste activities, color-coding activities, sorts, and all manner of small or large group activities […]
For the winter holidays there is so much fun classroom stuff to choose from that sometimes finding just what you are looking for can be a daunting task. Like many teachers, I changed some of my holiday activities each year, but also over the years, certain activities and resources became my favorites. I’ve […]
Figurative language and imagery! Teaching these concepts can be a fun part and a dreaded part of the language arts curriculum – all at the same time! Kids in middle school and upper elementary are still much more comfortable with writing whatever comes to their minds rather than working slowly to craft language, and so […]
Little kids learn to handle new situations by listening to stories about talking teddy bears, dinosaurs, and even vegetables. These unrealistic characters present lessons in a way that is easy for kids to understand and accept. But bigger kids prefer stories featuring actual kids like themselves, and it can be more difficult to present a […]
Freedom of the press – it’s such an important and timely topic – and has been ever since the beginning of our country, back when one-page broadsides read aloud on the main street kept citizens informed. Today with an infinite number of pages and screens full of information, it is still just as important – […]
Middle schoolers are NOT too old to work on writing at the sentence level. In fact, sentences can be perfect for teaching more advanced writing skills like revising and editing! There are lots of ways to do this. Single sentence lessons can be planned for studying mentor sentences, for writing practice, and for editing skills […]
A singular subject takes a singular verb. A plural subject takes a plural verb. So simple, right? Then why is subject-verb agreement such a troublesome topic to teach to middle graders? And, no, the answer doesn’t have to do with middle graders themselves and their study habits (That’s a whole other subject.)! It has […]
As a middle school teacher, I knew that it was important to incorporate movement into my lessons – to let out some of that boundless middle school energy. But I could also see that movement could get distracting really fast, especially too much movement. That’s why, whenever I create a new set of […]
When kids practice capitalization and punctuation by proofing their own writing, they get to actually apply what they know. That’s a great way to learn! But even a high level activity like this one has its drawbacks. Certain capitalization and punctuation topics just don’t come up frequently in student writing – at least not […]
Do you teach story elements at the beginning of the year? Review at mid-year? Teach them bit by bit throughout a semester? However you teach story elements, they’re sure to take up a good chunk of your Language Arts teaching time! So it makes senses to get as much bang for the buck […]
Proofreading is not easy for kids! When we proofread our own work as teachers, we are often looking for typos – errors that are easy to find – but for kids it’s different. Kids often don’t know that they’ve made errors – they wrote in the way that they thought was correct in the […]
The descriptive text structure seems to be the one that is often overlooked, and that is a shame because there are so many fun and interesting lessons that you can do with descriptive writing. Teaching students to take note of this text structure prepares them perfectly for working to add more description to their […]
It’s that time of year – time to round up some simple, easy to use resources for kids to take home for summer practice. Maybe your kids (or their parents) want some review work to take home. Maybe you are required to send home some practice work to help students keep their skills current. […]
Do kids really need to write poetry? To me, that is the wrong question. The more important question is how can writing poems help kids to meet their language arts goals? And the short answer to that is there are LOTS of ways poetry can help boost a kids language abilities. For instance: […]
A column in the Washington Post about New Year’s resolutions for the media led to this idea for a beginning-of-the-year writing lesson for January. The column, “Here are four suggested New Year’s resolutions for the media,” in the December 31, 2019 Post, proposed resolutions for journalists such as to spend more time reporting what […]
The basic rule of subject-verb agreement is hard enough to explain to kids! A singular subject takes a singular verb – but a singular verb looks like a plural noun because it ends with an -s, and a plural noun takes a plural verb – but a plural verb looks like a singular noun […]
This Autumn Sampler is my freebie of the season. It’s a set of three autumn-themed activity sheets with a little bit of reading, writing, and vocabulary practice on each one. I call it a “sampler” since each activity is one little part from one of my larger resources, and this week just seemed like […]
Here is a free chart of proofreading rules. It includes basic rules for run-on sentences and fragments, grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling – the rules that middle school and upper elementary kids need to check for repeatedly. Download a copy below and post it on your classroom wall or make a copy for […]
Freedom of the press is a topic that is both timely and perennial as a subject for classroom activities. Whether in language arts, reading, or social studies class, a discussion of freedom of the press can lead into all kinds of great reading and writing lessons as well as friendly debates! As I was collecting […]
A group writing lesson is a great activity for adding a little fun and class participation into a topic that is usually done on a more individual basis. Group writing can be done as a whole class or in small groups; either way provides an engaging lesson for middle school or upper elementary kids. […]
Task cards – language arts teachers love them, and so do students. You only have to copy them once and they’re ready to use over and over. And the best part is that there are so many different uses for task cards – from the variety of task card activities to the variety of […]
Proofreading means different things to different kids. For some it may just mean adding punctuation at the end of their sentences and capital letters at the beginning. Others may spend most of their proofreading time getting their spelling right. And others will be checking for various types of simpler or more complex grammar points. […]
As adults, before we finish writing something we may know that we want to make this or that type of changes in order for the finished piece to sound the way we want it to. But for kids, finishing that first draft is a big accomplishment in itself. As far as revising, kids may know […]
By the middle grades, kids know that prewriting is the first step of the writing process, but do they really understand why they have to do it? In one form or another, prewriting means jotting down ideas before beginning to write a story or essay in sentences and paragraphs, and doing some good […]
Writing to a prompt, writing without a prompt, quick writes, and full writings using all the steps of the writing process – as an English teacher, you’ll probably have your kids doing many of these activities repeatedly throughout the school year. By middle school or the upper elementary grades, kids have learned the basic ideas […]
Here are free templates for two Memorial Day Poems that middle school or upper elementary students will enjoy completing as the end of the school year approaches. Memorial Day, observed on the last Monday in May, is celebrated in two ways. It is a holiday in honor of soldiers who died in the […]
At a certain time of year, students and teachers alike are daydreaming about summer getaways. Maybe your perfect vacation would be a trip to one of the great old cities of Europe. Maybe it would be days of quiet hiking in the mountain air. Kids are thinking ahead to family trips or imagining adventures […]
To follow up on my last-week’s post about teaching kids to revise, here is some more specific information about my revising resources designed especially for quick practices on specific revising skills. Revising Task Cards Revising Task Cards is a set of 30 large task cards, with plenty of content on each card for […]
Just getting started on writing an essay takes a big effort for many kids (and adults), so it’s no wonder that once they put the period after the final sentence, students can be reluctant to make any changes. Revising, in other words, is a challenge – both to do and to teach! To […]
Continuing with my ideas for using picture books to introduce various language arts topics, I’ve been looking over some more books for good examples of writing with vivid verbs. And as always, the picture books didn’t disappoint! I’ll just mention two that have really good examples, Animal Poems by Valerie Worth and Gorky Rises […]
With the inauguration of the next president quickly approaching and many teachers planning patriotic lessons of one kind or another, I would like to offer a few writing prompts (or discussion questions) for the occasion. These prompts are each based on a quote from President Obama’s farewell address to the country. Quotes about Participation in […]
As important as it is for kids to write and write some more, sometimes you also want them to practice their background skills so that they can incorporate them in their writing more fluently. Kids can always use more practice on skills like working with parts of speech and using the mechanics or writing […]
Could you use a few writing prompts for your students’ journals, maybe for when you go back after a snow holiday? Here are a couple of ideas for this frosty time of year. Snow Scene Describe how the view around your home changes when there is a big snowfall. Write about what you see before […]
Picture books provide great examples for students of beginning sentences. In my last two “Opening Lines” posts, I wrote about beginning sentences that introduce the setting and beginning sentences that introduce the main character. This time, I’ll show you some examples of opening lines that hint at what’s to come. Like the others, this […]
Last week I wrote about using opening lines from favorite picture books as examples for students of different ways to begin a story or an essay. The problem was that there were so many choices I couldn’t narrow it down to enough for one blog post. So, “Opening Lines” is now a series […]
Did you ever . . .? Once I finally convinced my students not to begin their essays with, “I’m going to write about . . . ,” their next go-to opening sentence went something like this. “Did you ever wonder about . . .?” And, yes – starting with a question […]
These story dice look like a fun resource for introducing narrative writing. The set that I’m looking at here are called StoryTime Dice, and they’re from Imagination Generation, but there are a number of different choices from various companies. This set had dice for: • heroes •villains •settings •vehicles •tools •obstacles •and prizes […]
For an end-of-the-year writing assignment with a fun follow-up, try this persuasive writing activity. Step 1 – Divide into Groups Tell the class that it’s time to review some vocabulary from this year, but that you can’t decide which type of review game to play – hangman (or whatever less-violent name you […]
Check out my guest post on One Stop Teacher Shop. It’s all about ways to use pictures to get kids motivated to write – ideas for using your own photos, picture books, and photos from news sources. See suggestions for ways to use these pictures to get kid started writing narrative, informational, and persuasive […]
